


Obsessions

by leere



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Drugs, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationship, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Hate Sex, Infidelity, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:22:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3997063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leere/pseuds/leere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick's an obsession. Or an addiction, he's not sure. Probably both. Then again, it's the same thing, right?<br/>Pete's an addict. Everyone's an addict. And Patrick is Pete's favorite drug. That's the only reason he keeps coming back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obsessions

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write a fic based on 9 Crimes by Damien Rice for years. And then, last month, I went to a Marina and the Diamond's concert, and when she sang Obsessions, I started crying and all I could think of was Peterick. So I wrote this, inspired by the lyrics of Obsessions and then, like, the entire 9 Crimes song. I've had it on repeat for the entire two days I wrote this in (you should, like, do the same while you read this. Or not. Whatever.) Enjoy?

"You're still here?"

Pete opens his eyes, and when he instantly winces, he's not sure if it's because of the bright sunlight streaming in, or because of the harsh voice coming from the naked body beside him. He decides both make his already-unbearable headache worse. Fucking hangovers. Fucking one night stands. Fucking sunlight.

"Yeah, I'm still here," he snaps at the busty but petite brunette who's frowning at him from the right side of the bed. Patrick's side. "I feel like shit, and I'm sorry I couldn't leave earlier. But I'll gladly go now."

She's kind of pretty - messy brown hair with lighter streaks in it, pouty pink lips with a shiny silver lip ring, a cute nose piercing to match a cute nose, big green eyes. Pete closes his eyes briefly and sees a different pair of big green eyes, so he quickly opens them again.

"You okay?" the girl asks, standing up out of bed. She's naked, and Pete glances at her breasts - _nice, very nice_ \- but he doesn't think he could fuck her again without some alcohol in his system. "Hey," she says, her voice soft, and he looks up. "You okay?"

"Uh huh," Pete says. His own voice sounds terrible; his throat's all scratchy. 

"Want coffee?"

"Sure, yeah." Patrick likes it with sugar, but no creamer, because "creamer is fattening". Pete laughs bitterly. The girl - Pete can't remember her name, but she kind of looks like a Aubrey, or a Tina, she could even be a Sharon, who knows - looks at him like he's crazy. He kind of is. "What was your name again?" he asks.

"Names don't mean anything." She smiles, a little sadly, and pushes hair out of her eyes. "Trust me. Names don't matter. Faces do. And when you live like you and me, bodies do, too, even more than faces." She points to her own. She's white, but she's got hips to rival Beyoncé's. She's also shaved bare and she's got double d's. Meaning she's basically condemmed to a life of meaningless sex and rough smacks to that luscious ass of hers. "Remember this one or not, I don't care, but you're obviously remembering another one right now, and you were when you were fucking me, too, I could tell. So I'll get you some coffee, and I'll write my number on your neck, even though we both know you'll never call me, so your girlfriend can see it when she's licking it, and then you'll be in deep shit with her, and maybe you'll come back to me for a sympathy fuck. I don't know. But whatever. Coffee."

Angsty-Scene-Girl-with-Amazing-Body-and-No-Name-Number-22 leaves the bedroom, and Pete watches her ass as she goes, the sway of her hips. Then he stands and dresses, careful to not look at his phone because he already knows he's got a dozen missed calls, all from Patrick. He doesn't even want to look at his contact picture. It hurts too much. 

He brushes his teeth with her toothbrush, which isn't gross considering what they probably did last night - _Colgate, minty fresh_ \- and leaves a note, scrawled on the back of a prescription for sleep medication that's sitting on her nightstand.

 _'youre number 22,'_ it reads, _'but 22s always been a good number for me. speaking of numbers, yours isnt on my neck, and so my boyfriend, yeah i said boyfriend, wont get to see it and im sorry for that. i wont be coming back, but thank you for last night.  
\- i dont have a name either. i wish i knew yours._

Then he slips out the window of her apartment, climbs down the fire escape, and starts to hail a cab when he realizes he's in a smaller city in New York. He still doesn't risk looking at his phone, but the cabbie tells him it's nine a.m. when he asks.

"Okay," Pete says. "Take me home, Mr. Cab Driver Man."

"Mr. Cab Driver Man" is actually a big Fall Out Boy fan, and he does get Pete home - by one a.m., but it's better than staying in New York. Pete gives the kid a tip of six hundred and fifty bucks - it's everything he's got in his pocket. The young cabbie gapes, then starts grinning like a maniac. Pete signs the fifty, then gets out, thanks the man - he's technically "Mr. Cab Driver Boy", since he's only twenty two -, and starts up the street. He'd had the cab driver pull up two streets away from his and Patrick's place so he wouldn't tell everyone where they lived. They had enough problems; crazy fans peering in the bedroom window during sexytime was exactly what they didn't need.

Patrick's not sitting on the couch this time, slumped over and drooling and passed out from waiting for Pete for hours. He doesn't hop up and jump into Pete's arms, and then cry, and then slap him. He's not there at all.

Pete goes through the house, looking everywhere for him, and he finally finds him in their bedroom, curled up and shivering like he's cold, which makes sense because he's kicked all the blankets off him. He's in one of Pete's shirts, boxers that might be Pete's, and no pants. No wonder he's cold. He looks so small, so little and vunerable in Pete's bed.

Pete climbs in behind him, pulling Patrick into his chest, holding him close. Patrick makes a tiny protesting sound, and Pete pulls off his hat, tossing it across the room and burying his face in Patrick's hair. He smells like lavender. Girly, but kind of comforting, if a little strong. It's not his usual fruity smell, though. Pete himself still smells like cheap beer and Number 22's perfume, but somehow that's okay.

He wakes up to cold water in his face and a vicious, "Wake the fuck up!" in his ear.

"What the fuck?" he sputters, wiping aggressively at his eyes. "Patrick, what the-"

"Where the fuck were you? Do you know how fucking worried everyone was? Bob wanted to send out search parties. You were gone without telling any fucking one for four fucking days, you _dick_!" Patrick kicks the bed, hard, as he shouts 'dick', and then he stands there and breathes hard, one hand gripping the empty cup and the other holding Pete's phone. Pete blinks at him slowly.

A few silent minutes pass. Pete stares at the phone in Patrick's hand as the notification light on it flashes. Patrick stares at Pete. "Say something," he says, and he'd be pleading, except he's not. His voice sounds empty. His face looks horrible; his skin's paler than usual, his normally bright blue eyes are a dull green, his lips are chapped and set in a hard line. 

Pete blurts the first thing he thinks of. "I think that's the most I've ever heard you say 'fuck', outside of when I fuck you."

Patrick's bottom lip trembles. A tear drips down his cheek. Patrick only ever cries when he sees sad movies, and Pete teases him about it every time it happens, but he doesn't cry because of this kind of stuff - he's not emotional like that. But another tear falls, and then he's turning and leaving. Pete hears the garage door open and close five minutes later.

Patrick took Pete's phone when he left, so Pete takes a couple Ativans and then ends up on the couch, watching Breaking Bad for four hours and Friends for seven. 

Patrick finally comes back at around nine, and as soon as he's in the door, he puts the car keys on the counter, doesn't even acknowledge Pete, and microwaves one of those easy cook lasagna things.

"Have you eaten?" he asks Pete once it's done, sitting across from him. His voice is husky; he probably hasn't talked for hours, just drove around alone and thought about his life. Pete knows what that's like.

Patrick frowns at him. He opens his legs, slips a hand down to rub at himself, but Pete just focuses blankly on his crotch, then back on his face. Patrick's done this before; argued with Pete and then assumed sex would fix it all. It does, for the most part, but he hates the fact that he's done this to him. He's made Patrick think sex makes everything better. But it's just kind of like a bandage; it's a distraction, so you forget the wound is there, until you take it off and that son of a bitch stings like a motherfucker.

Patrick's face is unreadable; he stands, with the lasagna, and straddles Pete. Pete stares up at him. His brain is a warm, fuzzy mess, and his dick is slowly heating up too.

"Did you eat?" Patrick repeats. 

Pete manages to shake his head.

"How many pills did you take?"

Pete shrugs.

Patrick's eyes close briefly, and then they open, bright and determined and staring into Pete's. "Open up, then."

Pete could feed himself, he really could, but there's something nice about Patrick feeding him. It's not sexual, though it could be, with the way Patrick's staring at his mouth and licking his own lips. But it's intimate in another way, because Patrick cares enough to do this. Most of the people Pete's fucked - fucked, no, _dated_ \- wouldn't do this for him. But Patrick is.

They finish the food, and Patrick does the dishes, though they'd eaten out of the container. Then he says, "Going to bed. Come in or not."

Pete does, as soon as the current Friends episode ends. He strips down bare, then slips in.

It's too dark to see, but he feels Patrick rolls over, and then he's on top of Pete, naked as well. He kisses him hard, and Pete's tired but he kisses back with just as much vigor.

They don't have angry sex, but Patrick gets a little aggressive; rolls his hips too hard, bites Pete's neck into a red and purple mess, pulls his hair until Pete whines. Pete responds by digging his nails into Patrick's hips, snapping his own until Patrick's crying out, not touching his cock and slapping Patrick's hand every time he tries to touch it himself. One of Pete's hands finds Patrick's face; there's hot wetness sliding down his cheeks, and now Pete can hear the cries that aren't moans. He grips Patrick's chin, tilting his head down to kiss him, his hips working overtime. Patrick's cursing now, just a begging mess of, "Pete, fuck, please, _fuck_ ," with the occasional sob thrown in. Pete's free hand slides down Patrick's back, grips his ass, feels the muscles moving. Once, as a joke, Pete had scribbled the words, "The only place that feels like home," on Patrick's lower back, in pen, with arrow pointing down to his ass. It was dumb at the time, just to piss him off, but it's true now. There was just something so intimate about fucking Patrick, being inside him when no one else _(?)_ had. It was a type of intimacy that holding hands or making music or being on stage together could never amount to. 

Patrick's got one hand on Pete's shoulder and the other on his own dick now, and Pete lets him, mostly because he likes hearing Patrick when he's three strokes away from coming everywhere. He's talking now, gasping between words but clearly saying, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Why do you do this to us?"

"I'm sorry," Pete whispers in Patrick's ear, and Patrick actually wails, body going taught and ass clenching ridiculously tight as he shakes and streaks Pete's chest. Pete thrusts up a few more times and manages to get Patrick's prostate, judging by the way he whines and then whimpers, trembling hard. He slumps, nose smushed to Pete's cheek, ragged breathing in Pete's ringing ear. 

"I don't get to come?" Pete asks aloud.

"Not in me, you don't," Patrick says, and he sounds terrible, wrecked and in tears. He sniffles, getting off Pete and rolling over onto his side.

"Fuck that," Pete says, sliding down and moving to spoon Patrick - but he slips back inside him, hooking a leg over his and tugging him closer. 

"Too sensitive," Patrick says sharply. He sounds exhausted. "Let me sleep."

"Let me get off," Pete answers, hips snapping into Patrick until finally, finally he comes, so hard everything goes black for a few seconds.

"Get off of me." Patrick's low voice cuts through his high.

"Let me enjoy the after glow, Jesus Christ."

"Get the fuck off me," Patrick grits out, and Pete realizes he's got an arm bared against Patrick's chest and a leg around him. He's stuck; he's holding him down, pinning him there. By definition, he just raped him.

He lets go instantly - he's a lot of things, but he's not a rapist - and Patrick gets out of bed. He leaves the room, and Pete watches him, thinks back to Number 22 and Number 16 and Number 7 doing the same thing - leaving. And all of them. Patrick's not going to be one of them.

Pete rolls over and falls asleep alone on top of lube-slick, sweat-and-tear-covered silk sheets.

A few weeks later, he wakes up on a Sunday morning in Number 23's bed. This one's blonde - he's not usually into blondes, Patrick's just an exception. He likes them dark and exotic, kind of like himself. Maybe it's the narcissistic side of him. Or the side of him that hates himself. Maybe fucking people that resemble him and leaving them even more broken than they originally were is a twisted way of hurting himself. 

Number 23 is dressed in a Starbucks uniform; her nametag says 'Ella'. Number 23 suddenly has a name. Her makeup's light and complimentary, not dark and smeared like his usual affairs' are. She's on her phone, but she glances up when he sits up. "My shift started seven minutes ago. I didn't want to leave a stranger alone in my house. C'mon."

"Why didn't you wake me up?" Pete tugs his jeans up, but has to crawl around in search for his shirt. He finds it hanging from the ceiling fan, and eyes 'Ella'.

"I felt bad." She throws his phone at him, and he catches it. "A Patrick's been texting you for hours. He started off worried, but then he sounded pissed. I didn't want you to go home to that."

"We'll fight and then we'll fuck it better," Pete says. "You have a job to get to, don't you?"

"And you have a concerned husband to get to," she says, tapping Pete's wedding ring and pursing her lips at him. He has flashes back to that night; nothing but happiness. Patrick's laughing face and terrible dance moves, Joe being a drunken mess, amazing sex after the ceremony. Patrick's beaming smile the entire day. He hasn't seen him smile that genuinely since. 

It's been over two years since their wedding.

Then he's back in reality; in a stranger's bedroom, Stranger Number 23, to be exact. She herds him out, locks the door behind them, then says, "You need a ride somewhere?"

"What city are we in?" he has to ask, because he doesn't know.

"Chicago," she says, frowning.

"Oh." He glances around. Right, he knows this neighbourhood. "Nah, I'm okay. Thanks for, um. Thanks for everything." He taps at his pocketed phone nervously. Her blue eyes are staring hard at him. He's uncomfortable.

"Tell Patrick I'm sorry for what I helped you do to him," she says. "I helped you cheat. That's fucked up of both of us - it's a deadly sin, isn't it? And I helped you do it. Tell him I'm sorry."

He doesn't, just hugs Patrick tight when he gets home and lets him grab his hair and fuck his mouth when he sucks him off. He owes him that, honestly, because they both know that Patrick knows exactly where that mouth was just last night. 

But Pete's extra careful to leave before Number 24, a little black haired guy with a great mouth, wakes up, just three days later. He doesn't leave a note.

He tries to go home, at the decent time of noon. Patrick's not there; Pete suspects he's at the studio or the store, one of the two. Until he doesn't come home and Pete falls asleep waiting for him, just like Patrick had with him, all that time ago.

But then Patrick stumbles in at two a.m., drunkenly laughing and making out with a skinny guy who's quite a bit taller than him. He has to stand on his tiptoes to kiss him; he doesn't have to do that with Pete.

Pete blinks warily, and then it connects, and without thinking, he stands up and literally punches the guy's lights out. He falls to the ground, unconscious. 

"What the fuck, Pete?" Patrick yells, and he's drunk as fuck, yeah, his words are slurring and he's not even focusing on Pete's face. "You cheat twice a week, but - but I can't sleep with one fucking guy that's not, not you?"

"No," Pete snaps, crowding Patrick up against the wall. He grabs his hands, slams them up above his head and then leans in close. "Because you're mine, you fuck."

Patrick squirms, then goes still and says, slowly, "Then you're mine, too."

"Yeah," Pete says. "I am." 

He doesn't believe it. Patrick doesn't either.

Pete fucks him dry against the wall, tries to ignore the fact that Patrick's Stranger Number 1 is passed out a few feet away, and the fact that Patrick's crying. Always fucking crying. He kisses him, tenderly and then more passionately, but Patrick's bottom lip keeps trembling. The dry slide hurts Pete's dick, and he can't imagine what it feels like for Patrick, but it can't be that bad because Pete switches angles and Patrick's legs tighten around his waist, and then he's coming, hard, head thrown back against the wall and perfect neck exposed. Pete's left thousands of hickeys on thousands of perfect necks, but breaking the delicate skin on Patrick's is the best. He leaves four in a line, thinks, _One hickey for every letter of my name. Reminds both of us who he belongs to._ He comes when Patrick makes a broken little whining sound - he's not a sadist, he's not, but there's something beautiful and ridiculously hot about breaking the already broken.

Patrick's lost a ton of weight in the last year, but Pete's still tired from holding him up for a good twenty minutes. He lets Patrick go, and Patrick just kind of crumbles to the ground. Pete goes back to the bedroom and falls asleep alone. Again.

-

Number 25 smokes. She's a redhead, not naturally, judging by the dark brown of her roots. She's been hanging out behind the bar with Pete for an hour. The smell floods Pete's nostrils, that not-so-pleasant stink of nicotine burning. She's technically not Number 26 yet, they haven't even touched and neither of them are drunk, but Pete figures she will be in a few martinis.

"Can I bum one off you?" Pete asks. She nods, and he sticks the one he's offered between his teeth, lights it, then takes a pull. He doesn't start coughing violently, thank God. He doesn't even smoke, but he wants to smell like someone he's not when he goes home to Patrick.

"You have someone at home, no?" 26 asks in that delicious South American accent of hers. She flicks her cigarette at Pete's wedding band, and the sparks briefly light up the engraving of 'PS + PW' (there's a tree, somewhere in a rural part of Chicago, that says those same four letters). Patrick has a matching one. He wanted the engraving on the inside of the ring, so it was hidden ( _"Like a secret,"_ he'd said, _"and I know how much you love those."_ ) but Pete won the argument to get it on the outside.

He needs to stop wearing it out of the house. "Yeah," he says. "We're - it's not. Anymore."

She nods sympathetically and sticks her bottom lip out. "Need someone to kiss it better, papi?"

Pete nods eagerly.

He gets a killer blowjob in her old Mercedes. It's not what he'd like - he was hoping on some mind blowing penetration; South American girls are apparently incredible in bed, if Gabe Saporta's wild stories about his adolescent sex life aren't completely made up - but he'll take what he can get. He reaches into her panties to get her off, but she smiles and shakes her head, then gets to fixing her hair and makeup. Pete doesn't know what to do, so he gets out of the car and starts for his house.

When he gets home, Patrick's laying on their bed, watching MTV through unfocused eyes. It's not music, but Pete turns it off before he can see what the show is. Patrick stares blankly at the dark TV screen.

Pete straddles him, runs his hands down Patrick's chest. 

"Missed you, baby," Pete says, grinding down on Patrick to the beat of the ticking clock in the hallway until he's hard underneath him. "You missed me, right? Your dick totally did, I think."

"You smell like smoke," Patrick says, eyes flickering up to meet Pete's. "Where were you?"

"Out," Pete says. He's in the mood to switch things up. "Wanna fuck me, Patrick?"

Patrick's silent. Then he nods slightly.

Pete grins.

He ends up doing most of the work. Patrick lays back, admires Pete through big eyes that aren't actually admiring him. Pete puts on a show, is careful to be loud (he screams just to bother the neighbors, loudly yells, "Oh, God, fuck, _fuck me_ , so fucking, _fuck_ , touch me!"), jerks himself off and shrieks when he comes. Him and Patrick both know it's fake; Pete's actually really quiet in bed. But Patrick doesn't comment, and when he himself comes, it's with his hips tilted up, his eyes clenched shut and his mouth open. When he's stopped shaking, Pete gets off of him and lays beside him. Patrick turns to face away from him, and Pete curls up behind him, tracing patterns on his back through his t-shirt. An hour or so passes. Pete's drowning in terrible thoughts. He could end this; there's so many ways to. Every problem has a solution, and he could just eliminate the problem, easy enough - except none of this is Patrick's fault. It's Pete's. Pete's done this.

He's not sorry.

He's sure Patrick's asleep, but then he hears sniffling and Patrick shifts. He's crying again.

Pete's suddenly mad. He doesn't know why, but he's suddenly two seconds from punching a hole in a wall. "Stop fucking crying," he snaps. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Patrick doesn't answer, but he doesn't stop. 

"Shut the fuck up. How the hell am I supposed to sleep when you're crying like that?" He doesn't know where the anger's coming from. Pent up rage and frustration, maybe. But he doesn't get physically abusive - he never has. He's glad for that. He just stands up and leaves, grabbing a shirt and pants on the way out.

He ends up alone in his car in a Best Buy parking lot. This time he doesn't have any pills on him, or his _Grace_ CD. He's grateful.

Patrick calls a few minutes later. It's four a.m. now. "Come home, Pete."

Pete doesn't answer.

"Pete, please."

He hates Patrick. Hates him. He's been nothing but an incredible boyfriend; loyal, doting, sweet. But Pete hates him because he hates himself. Patrick's just a reminder of how fucked up Pete is and how fucked up he makes the people he gets close to.

Pete stays silent.

"I love you," Patrick says, his voice sounding choked. "I love you, Pete - please come home."

Pete hangs up.

He hates obsessions. He hates being obsessed. 'Obsessions' is really just a lighter word for 'addictions' anyway. When someone says 'addiction,' you think of drug abuse, alcoholism. When someone says 'obsession,' you think of a band or singer or actor you're totally in love with. But it's the same thing, really. Google says so.

Patrick's an obsession. Or an addiction, he's not sure. Probably both. Then again, it's the same thing, right?

Pete's an addict. Everyone's an addict. Patrick is Pete's favorite drug, his favorite musician, his favorite addiction/obsession. That's the only reason he keeps coming back.

He slips back into their bed three days later, pulls Patrick close. 

"You gonna make this a habit, Pete?" Patrick asks, sounding sleepy and a little wary but thankfully not tearful. "Crawling into my bed at ungodly hours?"

"Your bed? It's our bed, princess."

"But you haven't been in it in so long. I've had it all to myself for months, so I pretty much consider it mine now."

 _I wanna leave already,_ Pete thinks. He holds Patrick tighter, and Patrick's hand covers Pete's, where it's rested over his stomach.

He doesn't sleep. But Patrick does. 

Pete wonders what things would be like if the gentle sound of Patrick's breathing wasn't there.

They go shopping together the next day. Patrick's been dressing snazzier since he's lost the weight, and now he's in a short sleeve button up, a comlimentary blue color that brings out his eyes, and black skinny jeans that fit him very nicely. He's got his glasses pushed up his nose, a messenger cap thing pulled down over his eyes.

Pete's in a hoodie and jeans. That's all he wears anyway. He's stolen one of Patrick's old trucker hats, though, and it's pressed down on top of his messy, greasy, over-long hair.

They get in a fight over crackers, of all fucking things. Pete wants Wheat Thins, and Patrick wants Ritz.

"It's the same fucking thing," Patrick says, his voice low but harsh. "Who the fuck cares?"

"Wheat Thins and Ritz aren't the same, you dumbass, there's a huge difference between them. Wheat Thins are square shaped and salty, and Ritz are rounded and cheesy and gross, and they have ridges, why the fuck-"

"We'll get both, then, calm the fuck down!"

"No, we're fucking getting Wheat Thins or we're not getting shit." Pete's voice has gradually risen, and now he's shouting.

"You're making a scene," Patrick says, quietly and calmly. "People are staring."

"We're getting fucking Wheat Thins." Pete sweeps his arm across the shelf, and a dozen boxes of crackers fall into their cart.

Patrick looks at the cart for a long moment, then calmly gathers the six things they've already gotten in his arms. Then he's walking down the aisle, away from Pete.

Pete stares after him dumbly. Then he grabs a box of Ritz crackers and leaves their cart there, running after Patrick.

"Here," he says after he's tapped Patrick on the shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Patrick looks at him and just sighs loudly, even as he takes the crackers. They go through checkout without speaking. The car ride home is even worse. Pete wonders if he should just make Patrick "accidentally" swerve into another car. They're on the freeway; with the speed they're going at, it might kill them both. 

Five blocks from their house, Pete says, "Drop me off here."

"Why?" Patrick asks.

"Do it."

Patrick pulls up next to a post office. "Want me to wait for you?"

"I'll come home later."

Patrick nods and lets him out. "What are you gonna do?"

"Find Number 26," Pete answers.

Patrick's silent. Then he puts his sunglasses on and drives away.

Number 26 ends up being a little blonde guy who closely resembles Patrick; he even makes the same sounds when Pete fucks him. He's a children's nurse, too, and later, when they're laying there together, he starts blabbing about a kid he worked with yesterday, and Pete listens half-heartedly, hums when he's supposed to. 

"Hey, like, I have to go." Pete points to his wedding ring. "Wife's expecting me back from my 'business trip' around right now, y'know?"

26 nods. "You should get back to her. Thank you, uh. Did - did you ever tell me your name?"

"Fuck names; remember my face and my dick, babe, that's all that matters."

The guy watches him dress, then lights up a cigarette. Pete wants to say, "A children's nurse? Who smokes? Good example you're setting there, doc." But instead he says, "Can I have one?"

26 passes him one.

Pete thanks him, then lets himself out. He throws the unlit cigarette into the street and starts walking.

When he gets home, Patrick's not there. There's a note on the counter that says, _"I'm tired of your shit. I can't handle you and your addictions. I still love you, Pete, but it's too much. The band's not getting back together, and you and I aren't either. I'm sorry. I'll come for my stuff later. -Patrick"_

Pete slides down to the kitchen floor, note in hand. He pulls his knees to his chest; Patrick's gone. He actually left. Pete barks out a bitter laugh, even as hot tears streak his cheeks. He finally fucking had enough.

Pete spends ten minutes crying on the floor, and then goes and swallows down a dozen pills. He's just fueling one of his many addictions. 

_'i guess youre number 27, baby'_ , Pete texts Patrick. Then he blacks out.


End file.
